Los Dress shirt by Dolce & Gabbana ($450). Dolce & Gabbana, 312 North Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills, 310-888-8701. Skinny tie ($38) and pants ($109), both by Buffalo David Bitton. Available at Bloomingdale’s, Beverly Center, 8500 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles, 310-360-2700. Dog collar by J.K. Livin. Visit jklivin.com.
We flock to his movies, marvel at his physique, ponder which rumors about his bohemian
life in Malibu might be true, and, to this day, imitate his character in Dazed and Confused. (Say it with me:
“That’s what I love about these high school girls….”) Now Matthew McConaughey—leading man extraordinaire and rom-com favorite (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Failure to Launch, Fool’s Gold)—turns the genre on its ear with the Scrooge-like tale Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, playing a womanizing fashion photographer who’s put through the paces by a string of apparitions.
Off set, he’s got his hands full with new baby Levi and gorgeous girlfriend Camila Alves, a laidback new clothing line, and burgeoning reggae star Mishka on his new record label, J.K. Livin. No rest for the hunky, we suppose. We caught up with him in the midst of the excitement of Mishka’s album being released on iTunes.
LOS ANGELES CONFIDENTIAL: Matthew! What have you been up to today?
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY: I just got through hanging out with Levi; there’s sunshine in the driveway. It’s a good day.
LAC: How are you taking to fatherhood?
MM: It feels pretty natural. The instincts kinda took over, and I’ve been rolling with it. He’s seven months old now, and after six months, there’s a real change. Their personalities really start coming through.
LAC: You must travel a lot. Will you take him along when you can?
MM: He’s already got five stamps on his passport! He’s been to Europe and Brazil. Culture and travel have been the two best educators in my life, and I’ve been fortunate to have been exposed to quite a bit of both.
LAC: You did your latest film, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, in Boston. What drew you to the script?
MM: There’s a lot more genuine comedy in it than in scripts I’ve done before. And there’s a Groundhog Day element. The device of the ghosts took the ceiling off the comedy and invited slapstick elements that allowed us to stretch ourselves.
LAC: Your character, Connor Mead, starts off as kind of a jerk.
MM: It was great to have a character with a full-on antiestablishment point of view. The guy believes love is a myth. He struts through the first part of the story with a very R-rated perspective. Then he runs into these ghosts. He doesn’t see the light thanks to someone else’s logic—it’s ghosts. He gets the shit scared out of him.
LAC: It’s definitely a departure from the traditional romantic-comedy story line.
MM: In virtually every romantic comedy, you know the guy and the girl are going to get together. You
see Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson, and you know they’re going to get together, but you just hope it’s going to be entertaining along the way. Usually, at the end the third act, the guy loses the girl and has to chase after her, in a cab, or on a moped, or whatever. Then, there’s a moment where he has to yell her name, but there’s a jackhammer or something going off, and she doesn’t hear him. What’s so interesting about Ghosts of Girlfriends Past—and one of the real reasons I was so interested in it—is that, at the end, the chase isn’t to get the girl. The chase is to get the fiancée of my character’s brother, who is going to leave him— which is my character’s fault.
